TRENTON -- Former 9/11 Commission chairman Gov. Thomas H. Kean on Thursday called for a "full and fair" investigation into U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' misrepresentations to Congress but stopped short of calling for the appointment of an independent counsel.

On Thursday morning, the Washington Post reported that that while still a U.S. senator and Trump campaign surrogate, Sessions had twice met with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. in the run-up to the election despite his earlier claims of having no contact.

In his confirmation hearings before the U.S. Senate, Sessions testified that while "I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn't have -- did not have communications with the Russians."

Current and former US intelligence officials have described Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak as a top spy and recruiter of clandestine intelligence agents.

On Thursday afternoon, Sessions announced he would recuse himself from the matter, but Kean said the discrepancies nonetheless raised troubling questions.

"We need to find out some answers," Kean told NJ Advance Media. "On this whole business with the Russians, we need a full and fair investigation."

Kean was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002 to chair a special commission to investigate the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and co-authored its final report.

On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, called for Sessions to be investigated by a 9/11 style commission without any sitting members of Congress but with subpoena power.

But when Kean was asked if he agreed with other Republicans' calls for the appointment of an independent prosecutor to look into the inconsistencies in Sessions' testimony, he said: "I don't, because independent prosecutors have a very checkered history."

Kean said his concern was the ever-expanding mandate that independent counsels often assume.

"They can really hamper an administration and at the end of it not have much results," said Kean.

"We should look to an independent counsel only when Congress fails. That 9/11 commission was formed because Congress failed; they didn't do a good job investigating 9/11, and so we were formed to do that. It's only when the system fails that you should go outside the system."

Currently, the Senate intelligence committee is conducting an investigation into the matter, and "I have absolute confidence in that committee," said Kean.

The House intelligence committee is also conducting its own investigation.